Mukesh Ahlawat new face in Atishi cabinet, Kailash Gahlot to be retained: Sources

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Mukesh Ahlawat will take oath as a minister of Delhi Chief Minister-designate Atishi’s cabinet on Saturday. The Dalit MLA represents Delhi’s Sultanpur Majra Assembly constituency.
The four other Delhi Ministers set to retain Cabinet posts are Kailash Gahlot, Saurabh Bhardwaj, Gopal Rai, and Imran Hussain.
Ahlawat contested the 2020 Delhi Assembly elections for the first time from Sultanpur Majra on an AAP ticket. He won the polls with 48,042 votes and replaced Sandeep Kumar, former minister for the welfare of Scheduled castes.
Ahlawat, an important Dalit face from Delhi North West region, has been inducted to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Delhi’s social welfare minister Raaj Kumar Anand.
Anand resigned from the AAP-led government and quit the party in April.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Ahlawat’s name was in the news as a candidate from North West Delhi. However, due to the election alliance, this seat went to Congress.
The Delhi government’s Council of Ministers has seven members, including the Chief Minister. The name of the seventh member is yet to be announced.
Atishi and her Council of Ministers will take oath on Saturday.
Initially, the AAP announced that she would be sworn in during a special Delhi Assembly session on September 26-27, but it later accepted September 21 as the swearing-in date following a proposal by Lt. Governor VK Saxena.
Atishi, the lone woman minister in the Delhi Cabinet, was unanimously selected for the Chief Minister’s post by AAP MLAs on Tuesday. She emerged as the frontrunner after Arvind Kejriwal resigned from the top post earlier this week.
Kejriwal’s resignation came just days after he walked out of Tihar Jail months after he was arrested in connection to the Delhi liquor policy scam.
Atishi’s tenure as the Chief Minister will, however, be brief as the next Delhi Assembly polls are scheduled for early 2025.